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Once upon a time, some 40 years ago, all the "smart kids" — the valedictorians and salutatorians and National Honor Society members — wanted to be doctors or lawyers when they grew up.

The really smart ones, although we didn't realize it at the time, wanted to go to business or engineering school instead. Both involved regular hours with clean, safe working conditions and low stress, although both required higher mathematics, which most of the rest of us did not understand. Neither business nor engineering had the glamour or the wow factor of medicine or the law.

I was one of those valedictorians, but only because I substituted theater arts for calculus in my senior year. Otherwise the title probably would have gone to girl who went to Yale and became a hotshot lawyer. Or the girl who went to Smith and became a doctor. Or the boy who went to the University of Chicago and became a — wait for it — rabbi. (His older brother became first a train conductor, then a Methodist minister. The Katzes were the exception that proves the rule.)

Me? I was going to be a lawyer. I was too squeamish for medicine (although in biology lab with the girl who was going to be a veterinarian, the girl who was going to be a doctor and the girl who was going to be a lab technician, I was always the one who got to do the dissection). I also didn't have a head for business or engineering, which is strange because my father was an engineer who became a successful businessman.

That left the law. Bad choice, but that is another story.

Look at me today. I'm writing for a newspaper. So when the Republican-American surveyed this year's valedictorians from the 30 or so high schools we cover, I was curious. Who are they? What makes them tick? Where do they go from here?

We asked them their age, hometown, destination, intended major, intended career, the secret of their success and what they think about their generation. Here is what we learned.

Contrary to our initial impression (three of the first four were girls), the 30 valedictorians are about equally divided by gender: 16 girls, 14 boys. They include one student from China and at least two children of immigrants whose parents came here to make a better life for their families.

At least half of them credited their families, or specifically their parents, as one of the secrets to their success. Almost as many also cited their teachers and schools.

For some, success also means a bit of competition. Two valedictorians this year said they were working to live up to the reputations of their sisters, previous salutatorians at the same schools. One said he had a rivalry with his twin brother, who is the salutatorian this year at their school. A few others said they compete academically with their friends, and a couple said they compete with themselves.

Although one confessed to being a "professional procrastinator," she and about a third of the others said one of the secrets of success is time management. About the same number cited hard work or a work ethic.

When asked what we can expect from their generation, the answer was overwhelming: Millennials who have grown up with rapid advances in technology and social media will use those tools together — "interconnected" is the term that keeps coming up — to solve global problems. Only a handful took a stab at what those problems might be; they cited environmental and social issues.

Where are they going next? Fully a third of them will attend UConn next year. Two will be at Worcester Polytechnic; others are at Ivies like Yale, Cornell and Dartmouth or other top-notch schools. One will be at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but studying economics rather than engineering.

Is anybody studying engineering, then? You bet. In order of their popularity, likely majors are biology or premed, biomedical engineering, biochemistry, chemistry — but also aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering — you get the picture. Two want to study business, one music, one Spanish, one special education, one math, one gender studies.

As you may have guessed from those majors, our valedictorians see futures as doctors (about 20 percent, including a couple of pediatricians and one veterinarian) and research scientists (three biomedical engineers, three aerospace engineers, three health researchers including cancer and pathology specialists, two chemical engineers and a mechanical engineer). Three want to be teachers, including one in a developing country. Two want to go into finance or banking, and one into health care administration. Two want to go into fashion — one boy (the gender studies major) into design, and one girl, who wants to own a boutique.

There's not a lawyer — or journalist — among them.

As I said, these are smart kids.

Howard Fielding (hfielding@rep-am.com) lives in Southbury.

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